by L. A. Fiore
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2017, L.A. Fiore
All rights reserved
This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1977937759
ISBN-10: 1977937756
Cover Model: Jacob Sones
Cover photo by Scott Hoover
Cover design by Melissa Stevens, The Illustrated Author
File creation, mobi and epub, by Melissa Stevens, The Illustrated Author
Typeset graphics, title page art and paperback and eBook formatting by Melissa Stevens, The Illustrated Author
www.theillustratedauthor.net
Editing by Editor in Heels, Trish Bacher
www.editorinheels.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PLAYLIST
AUTHOR’S NOTE
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PLAYLIST
If I Ever Leave This World Alive…Flogging Molly
Carry On Wayward Son…Kansas
MmmBop…Hanson
Let Her Go…Passenger
Just Give Me A Reason…P!nk
Chasing Cars…Snow Patrol
Blackbird…Doves
Maybe…Ingrid Michaelson
More Than Us…Travis
The Story…Brandi Carlile
Breakeven…The Script
Run…Snow Patrol
Jeremy…Pearl Jam
Second Chance…38 Special
Jar of Hearts…Christina Perri
My Heart Is Broken…Evanescence
Light Outside…Wakey!Wakey!
What About Us…P!nk
Black Hole Sun…Nouela
Short Change Hero…The Heavy
Uninvited…Alanis Morissette
After All…Cher (with Peter Cetera)
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Brochan (Bro-gan)
Fenella (Fen-nella)
The John Walker: high end of the Johnnie Walker brand
Laird: a person who owns a large estate in Scotland.
Cranachan: a Scottish dessert
Mo Leannan: a Scottish endearment meaning ‘my love’
As children we are taught good from bad, right from wrong, but sometimes it isn’t so black and white. It is how one handles the ambiguous area in between that defines her…or him.
—Lizzie Danton
PROLOGUE
The full moon illuminated the navy sky as wisps of clouds moved over the pale sphere. The few times he cased the castle, the forest that wrapped around it had been a symphony of sounds–wolves, owls, crickets. Tonight it was as if the creatures that roamed the dark knew a more dangerous predator was on the hunt. He knew of a door that never was locked, he slipped inside. Without a sound, he walked up the stairs and down the hall. His palm was sweating from both nerves and excitement as he pushed open the door, raised the gun and squeezed the trigger, spraying the bed with bullets. Surprise furrowed his brow when he flicked the lights on to find the room empty but for a small piece of paper addressed to him on the night stand. The first trickle of fear slithered down his spine. With shaking hands he unfolded it. Penned in dark red ink was written only one word.
Run
Panic coated his throat and the finesse he had entered with only moments earlier had fled. Bone-deep terror replaced it. He did as instructed and ran. Reaching the staircase, he felt the hair at his nape stand on end. He wasn’t alone. The darkness took shape, staring back at him with ice-cold eyes. The last sound he heard was his own frantic scream for help.
...the birth
of a monster...
CHAPTER ONE
THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND
1982
“I don’t like this. Abigail, I don’t like it.”
“It will be fine. You’ll see.”
“The doctors say it is a risk for you to carry a child. Why would you do this?”
“I want your child.”
“But we discussed it. Your life is more important. We were considering adoption.”
“It’s not the same.”
“So you tricked me. You got pregnant knowing the risks,” he roared.
“I knew you wouldn’t allow it, but I want this even with the risks. Please don’t be upset. All will be well. You’ll see.”
“You deceived me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I can’t look at you right now.” His anger was from fear. He couldn’t lose her, but he was angry, so fucking angry. He shouldn’t have left the house. He should have sought solace in a bottle of whisky. What he set in motion that night would destroy them all.
“Finlay.” She reached for his hand.
He grasped it tightly. “I’m here.”
“He’s coming. Our son is coming.” Nine months. She had made it, defied the odds. All would be well. He would make it so. If they could conquer this, they could overcome anything.
“One more good push, lass. I know you’re tired, but one more push and you can rest,” the doctor encouraged.
She was so tired, so very tired. She knew the doctors had been right and she felt fear for her son. Would her husband love him when she was gone? Or would he blame him? “Promise me, Finlay, that you will love our son. No matter what.”
His face went pale. “We will both love him.”
She wanted to believe that, wanted to believe she would be there for all of his birthdays, but she knew better. She was fading, but not before she saw her bairn. “Promise me!”
“Yes, I promise.”
Satisfied her husband would keep his word she gathered up the last of her strength and pushed her son into the world. She knew it was a boy even before the doctor declared him as such. She touched his black hair and looked into his pale blue eyes. A lifetime of love she bestowed on him in that single glance.
“Doctor, her stats are dropping.”
The doctor was already handing off the baby and trying to stop the bleeding. There was too much, too fast. “We need to stop this.”
Finlay, seeing all the blood coming from his beloved, had forgotten all about their child. His only concern was for his wife. “What’s happening?”
“Get him out of here,” the doctor ordered.
“Save her. Save my wife.”
The doctor worked quickly and efficiently, but his thirty years of experience told him there was too much damage to repair. When she went into asystole, he stopped working.
“What are you doing? Help her!” Finlay raged, seeing his wife lying so still.
“Get the paddles,” the doctor ordered, but he knew it was jus
t to appease the husband.
The nurse called, “Charging…clear.”
No change.
“Again,” he ordered.
“Charging…clear.”
Another nurse touched her throat. “No pulse.”
“Again.”
“Charging…clear.”
Finlay watched in horror as his beautiful wife slipped away.
“Time of death, twelve thirty-two am.”
Finlay looked to the doctor and then to the babe crying air into his lungs before he settled on his beautiful wife and all the blood. His howls of anguish were heard on the other end of the hospital.
“Keep it away from me. I don’t want to see it or hear it.” If she hadn’t deceived him, nothing that followed would have happened.
“It’s just a bairn.”
“I want nothing to do with it.”
“You don’t mean that. Think of Abigail.”
“I didn’t want it. She tricked me and it killed her!”
He had a pang of guilt, remembering the promise his wife had made him give, but then she had broken her promise to him and in doing so she died. Bled out on the table after pushing that thing out of her. It killed her. How the hell could he love something that killed what he loved most in the world? “Out of my sight, woman!”
“Will you at least name your son?”
“You want him to have a name, you name him.” He walked away, needed to get drunk, anything to make him not feel the aching hole the loss of his wife created, or the hell he had brought onto himself.
Fenella and Finnegan had been with the McIntyre family from the beginning of Finlay and Abigail’s courtship. The tragedy of their young mistress was heartbreaking, the cruelty of the father unthinkable.
“He will come around. He is in mourning, but he will come around.”
Finnegan wasn’t so sure Fenella was right. A man turning his back on his bairn, well, to his way of thinking wasn’t much of a man.
“This babe needs a changing and some food. We’re going to need formula,” Fenella said as she cradled the wee babe in her arms.
Finnegan touched his dark hair, as soft as silk. “He’s a sweet baby. I’ve never seen eyes that color blue before, pale like the moon.”
“He is beautiful, but he’ll be crying soon enough if we don’t get him some food.”
“All right lass, I hear ye. I’m going. What are we going to call him?”
Fenella didn’t hesitate to answer; she knew what her young mistress wished to call the bairn. “Brochan.”
Finnegan smiled his approval. “After the dear sweet lass’ pa.”
“Aye.”
“And the laird?” Finnegan didn’t hide his anger at the laird and his treatment of his son.
Fenella, always the more calm of the two assured him, “He’ll come around.”
The laird did not come around. He changed after he lost Abigail. He never left his study. Drank himself to sleep every night. Brochan was a sweet little boy. He didn’t know the devastation his birth had caused. He didn’t know that his ma had given her last breath to see him born. He didn’t know that losing his wife, his father had lost himself. He didn’t know that his father blamed him for her loss.
A few months after Brochan came home, Fenella went to check on him. He was already sleeping mostly through the night. She wasn’t surprised because he was just that way, easy and sweet. She reached his room then stopped when she saw the laird standing over Brochan’s crib. Her heart leapt thinking that Finlay was past his grief and ready to be a father. He would see Abigail in his son’s features. She then noticed his hands curled into fists, so tightly the knuckles were turning white. She didn’t know what he would have done had Brochan not stirred then fussed for his bottle. Fear for the child seeded that night, fear of harm coming to him at the hand of his own father.
BROCHAN
1987
“Ma, watch me.”
“I’m not your ma, Brochan. Your mom was Abigail. We’ve talked about her.”
“Ma is in heaven.”
“Yes. You look like her. Her eyes were a darker blue, but she had the same black hair.”
“Can I go to heaven?”
“One day you will.”
“Will she know me?”
“Aye. A mother always knows her child.”
“Will she love me?”
“Of course.”
“Pa doesn’t. Is it not the same for pa’s?”
She got the look she did whenever I sneaked an extra biscuit, but it was scarier. “Your father is sad. He loved your ma very much.”
“I look like her. Maybe he’ll love me too then.”
She looked sad now. “He does love you.”
He didn’t love me. I could see it when he looked at me. I didn’t know what I had done. He never talked to me, but he hated me.
His car came up the lane and my stomach twisted in fear. He got mad at me even when I had done nothing wrong. I tried to please him, tried to make him proud, but he only ever looked at me with angry eyes. Finnegan had been teaching me to ride a bike. He said I was a quick study too, whatever that meant. I wanted to show my pa. Maybe if he saw I could ride a bike, he wouldn’t be so mad. He would be proud.
The car stopped and Pa climbed out. He was a tall man. “Fenella, get the boy dressed for dinner. I have associates coming over. He needs to look presentable.”
“Pa, look I can ride a bike! Finnegan taught me.” His blue eyes looked over and I got so excited, my legs shook then the bike shook and then I fell right off. The stones of the drive cut into my knees. I tried not to cry, but did anyway when I saw the blood running down my legs.
“Shut him up or I will. And clean him up.” Pa turned and walked inside without even asking if I was okay.
Fenella and Finnegan ran over. “You’re okay, Brochan. We’ll clean these cuts and maybe I’ll give you a biscuit.”
“Before dinner?”
“Aye.”
I wanted a biscuit, so I tried hard to stop crying.
Finnegan’s big hand came down on my shoulder and he squeezed in a way that made me feel loved, protected. “I bet that hurts, little man, but you’ll be okay.”
I wiped at my eyes and tried to keep the snot from running down my face. “Why does Pa hate me?”
“People grieve in different ways.” Fenella’s face went soft; it did when she was really sad. I didn’t like seeing her sad, so I stood and bit my tongue so I didn’t cry. My knees really hurt. “Maybe I could have two biscuits before dinner.”
She smiled. “Maybe.”
1989
“Ouch!” Pa pulled me from sleep when he yanked me out of bed by my hair. I smelled the whisky on his breath.
“You’re evil. Before you even took your first breath you killed your mother. You’re nothing but a monster.”
He dragged me down the hall. “Please, Pa.”
“Shut up.”
“I’ll be better.”
“Your soul is dark. Nothing for you to do about it.”
“I will be better. I will. I can be more quiet.” I tried to walk and pull myself free, but his strides were long. I lost my footing on the stairs; my back and butt took the hit as he continued to pull me down them. He reached the front door. Fenella and Finnegan came running from the servant’s hall, both dressed in their nightclothes.
“Laird, what are you doing?” Fenella demanded.
“You work for me. Remember that,” he roared. “Anyone lets him in can pack and get the fuck out.”
He opened the door; a blast of winter cold air hit me in the face. “You’re nothing but an animal and animals live outside.”
The heavy wooden door slammed closed in my face. I pounded on it, the bite of the cold going right through my pajamas. “Pa, please let me in. Please, Pa. It’s cold. Please, please.” My hands stung as I pounded on the heavy wood. I pounded for so long, my hands went numb and my shoulders ached. I curled up against the door and tried to convince myself I fel
t the warmth from inside coming through it. He would pass out and Fenella and Finnegan would let me back in.
I was frozen through when the door opened. My body so numb I didn’t feel Finnegan’s hands on me when he lifted me into his arms.
“He’s like ice.”
“He could have died,” Fenella hissed.
“I think that was the plan.” Finnegan was mad. I’d never heard him sound so frightening.
“When he learns you knocked him on the head,” Fenella warned.
“He won’t remember.”
“We can’t afford to get fired. Someone has to look out for Brochan.”
“Aye. But if he ever does that to him again, I’ll give him a taste of his own medicine.”
“I’ll hold your coat.”
1990
Fenella wasn’t feeling well. I sat with her and held her icy cold hand. She was sleeping now, but when she was awake she coughed so hard and so long it scared me. Finnegan was off getting her more medicine. I went to the kitchen to fill up her pitcher with water in case she woke and was thirsty. I didn’t know my pa was home until I heard his heavy footsteps coming from down the hall. He stepped into the kitchen; his eyes were rimmed with red. He’d been drinking again. He studied the pitcher I held. I recognized the look. He moved fast, reached me in a few strides. Fisting my hair, he yanked me from the kitchen.
“You need to repent.”
“For what?”
“Your sins.”
“What sins?”
“You lived.”
He dragged me to the small pond on the property, then into the pond until the water came up to his waist and my neck. Before I could gather breath, he held my head under. I flailed, trying to break free, even as my lungs burned for air. He didn’t release me, he didn’t let me up; he held me down so long the edges of my vision started going black. A sharp tug and sweet air filled my lungs; I inhaled greedily as I battled nausea. It didn’t last long before I was thrust back into the murky darkness. He called it baptism. Over the next year, I would be baptized every week. He wasn’t cleansing me of my sins. He was trying to kill me. Fenella wanted to report him to the authorities, had even risked telling her friend, Seamus, the local police, but he didn’t believe her nor did the town; Finlay was such a good, kind man and not capable of the cruelties he was accused of. It was more believable that I was a troubled child. Fenella knew if Seamus came out to the estate to question Finlay, my father would fire her and Finnegan and I would be left alone in my nightmare. Every time I survived his abuse, stumbled to my room weak and exhausted, another little piece of my soul died.